


among the stars

by mistyheartrbs



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: F/F, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 05:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11074848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyheartrbs/pseuds/mistyheartrbs
Summary: Two young women talk about everything and nothing on a cloudless night.





	among the stars

**Author's Note:**

> so the inspiration for this fic actually came from a fall out boy song? and i've been wanting to try out writing charoix for a while so. this happened.

Luna Nova was a big enough facility for the teachers to each have their own room, scattered around the campus so that they were close enough to their students and their classrooms. It was a good system, but the rooms didn't seem to have much in the way of locks. 

This was something that one Chariot du Nord became painfully aware of one cloudless night, when her wooden door creaked open and a scattering of cubes made their way around the room, as if they had a mind of their own. She heard a snap, and the cubes flew back to their owner. 

"Is there something you want, Croix?" Chariot muttered, fidgeting nervously with the hem of her robe. Croix tilted her head. 

"Can't I just visit an old friend?" Chariot took a deep breath, then gave up. 

"Only for a few minutes, alright? I have to finish grading these." She gestured to the uneven stack of papers on her desk, which was steadily becoming taller than her. 

"I have my own business to attend to as well, Chariot. I wouldn't have been able to stay for long anyway." Croix strutted across the room, her ridiculous red cape swishing behind her. Alcor screeched in protest. Chariot rushed to his side, giving him a calming pat on the head. 

"Hey, hey, it's fine. She's not going to hurt you." Croix leered at the crow. 

"Ungrateful bird. I helped raise you." 

"I don't think he remembers." Croix looked at Alcor again, his feathers still ruffled. 

"Do you?" 

"What?" 

"Do you remember when I helped raise him?" Chariot fiddled unconvincingly with her glasses. 

"Ah, well, that was a long time ago, so it's hazy . . ." Croix arched an eyebrow, and Chariot sighed in defeat. "We found him in the forest, right? We looked around for his mom for hours, but we couldn't find her. You told me that we _had_ to bring him back to the dorms." 

"Professor Finneran chewed us out for 'hours' after she found him trying to make a nest out of her papers." Croix laughed lightly at the memory, a surprisingly gentle noise that made Chariot's heart clench in a way so powerful she had to grip the edge of a chair for support. "Now he's just bitter, and old, and all he can do is sit on that perch and miss the golden days. Just like us." 

"Just like us," Chariot echoed. Croix looked up at the ceiling. 

"Nice office you've got here, anyhow. It's homier than the lab. You're an astrology professor, right? I'll bet the kids love you." 

"Well, it sure gives you a lovely place to stay." 

"Does that open?" Croix pointed to the large window at the top of the room, where the brilliantly gleaming stars peeked through. 

"Oh, erm, it's definitely opened in the past, but I haven't tried it . . . lately. It's not like I'd be able to do anything but fall out." Chariot forced an awkward laugh while Croix avoided her gaze. 

"You don't have to pretend you're fine. I didn't." 

"Does this look like _doing fine_ to you?" Chariot stepped closer, just enough so that she could smell the cheap ramen and motor oil staining Croix's cape, lingering on her breath, filling her lungs and surrounding the room. "You could've _killed_ her last night! Even after what happened to _you,_ you still went back there!"

"So did you." Chariot looked down at the floor, and Croix flicked her cape like some kind of melodramatic old-timey film villain. "You're still acting like a performer, even after all these years, hmm? I guess some things never really change."

"I didn't want it to end like this." Chariot still couldn't bring herself to meet her green gaze. 

"And yet you're not afraid of me." Croix put a curious finger to her chin, surveying Chariot like she was nothing more than a particularly interesting experiment. She lifted a slender hand, beckoning something over. Not a moment later, two of her funny-looking little vacuums whirred out of the shadows and waited patiently for their next command. "Besides, to answer your earlier question - you learn to be fine. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and invent these." Croix stepped onto one of the vacuums before pointing to the other one. 

"Should I . . . ?" 

"I'm not going to push you off, if that's what you're wondering." Chariot hesitantly put one foot on the device. "Hey, it won't bite."

"How long did it take for you to build these things?" Chariot wobbled as she spoke, the vacuum starting to rise in the air. Croix, meanwhile, sat cross-legged as comfortably as she would've in a chair on the ground.

"A few years, give or take. Really, they were more of a side project." 

"For what?" 

"If I told you that, you'd be worrying about it instead of enjoying this lovely view." The roof opened to the vast ocean of stars above, and Chariot's voice caught in her throat. 

"It's beautiful," she murmured, more out of habit than anything. She'd seen this same view hundreds of times, but recent events had made it difficult for her to find even a minute to spare in the nighttime. 

"See? You can't let this . . . this problem with a _tree,_ of all things, break you down. You're _Shiny Chariot,_ aren't you?" Croix smiled warmly, and it made Chariot feel like her very blood was starting to prickle. It had been years, _years_ since the two of them had done anything even remotely like this, and yet she might as well have been fifteen again with magic coursing through both their veins. 

"Why are you doing this?" Her words were careful, precise, but it pained her to say them nonetheless.

"Hmm?" 

"Didn't I hurt you?" Croix's expression softened. "Don't you hate me?" Chariot gulped after she finished speaking, as if she could swallow back the words if she tried hard enough. A gust of wind blew through, and she shivered only to find a red cape draped around her hunched figure. Croix didn't say anything for a moment. 

"It doesn't really matter, does it? You're not going to stop me." 

"For god's sake, Croix, maybe it's not about your plan!" Croix flinched. Chariot wondered if she'd somehow miraculously get her power of flight back if she flung herself off the vacuum right now, so that she could stop herself from sitting here with a woman she had no reason to love anymore. "Please, just tell me." Croix reached out for her hand, and she took it clumsily, like a child might. 

"I don't know," she said, and she was so close now that the vacuums were bumping into each other. Chariot could hardly breathe. "I'm here now, though, aren't I? That should give you something to hold onto." 

"We're not going to have very many nights like this, are we?" Croix took a deep breath. "We shouldn't even be doing this." 

"When have you ever cared about what you're _supposed_ to do?" For once, Chariot couldn't form a response. 

The two women sat there for a few minutes, simply watching the stars twinkle by, until Croix stood up and leaned down. The two vacuums followed her, and soon they were back in Chariot's office again, almost as if nothing had happened at all. 

"I'll see you around, Chariot." Croix took her cape back and walked out the door, taking her cubes and her vacuums and Chariot's heart with her, and all she could do was watch her leave.

**Author's Note:**

> do you know how difficult it is to maintain a serious tone when croix canonically has an army of roombas


End file.
